snapshot salvation

The Chambers of commerce profited a strong yield today when he pointed out that.

 

Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians’ lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God.This is not salvation— it is not simple enough. He says, in effect, “Look to Me and youare saved,” not “Youwill be saved someday.” We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, “Look to Me, and be saved."

 

We get mad at God because we cannot be the good Christian people we imagine we should be. We think being a Christian means becoming a Christian. We hold up Christians around us as targets on which we set our sights. We often fall short of our aspirations; but even if we accomplish them and become the Christian we always wanted, we have not yet entered into the rest of salvation.

 

Becoming a Christian is not something we do.

 

We receive our Christianity because of and solely on the basis of whatChrist has already done.

 

When we focus entirely on becoming better Christians, we end up pissed at God for making the ceiling so high, the rules so unbending, the standard so unreachable, the lion’s den so dark, the clouds so untouchable, the Goliaths so large and perfection so impossible. We can even begin to hate God for His good standards.

 

Observe…

 

Romans 8:7-8

 

⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

Our hope is not in achieving the resume’ of those to whom we look up.

Our hope is that God will forgive our inadequacy and find us in Jesus.

 

When we receive Him, we receive rest.

When we worry about the rest, we work up only more worry.